Oscar Buzz: ‘Moonlight’: To Be a Black Gay Man in America

[JahFocus CS]

In this thread... homophobes are mad as fukk and having a meltdown

 

[Mr Hate Coffee]

I always think this place is a lot more progressive than what it actually is. And I consider you all family so it's always interesting tho.

Anyway @Dr. Narcisse I prob won't make the screening. D.C. traffic plus the evening commute plus the time I get off work is going to mean I'd need a time traveling Delorean

Wessep with your website breh? Did the domain expire?

 

[MartyMcFly]

Wessep with your website breh? Did the domain expire?

I gotta put the squarespace link back in. Good looks on reminding me lol

It's just there for the podcast now. I might get back to reviewing movies on there if I get the free time

 

[Lord_Chief_Rocka]

How is a movie about fukking fakkitS a take on ANYONE'S masculinity?

We need to boycott this fukking movie.

I know right

 

[Lord_Chief_Rocka]

would you like to define masculinity for us?

Not getting fukked in the ass

 

[Jello Biafra]

I gotta put the squarespace link back in. Good looks on reminding me lol

It's just there for the podcast now. I might get back to reviewing movies on there if I get the free time

I feel you; I had all these plans to do Halloween specific reviews and other shyt on my blog but work and life just got in the way and next thing I knew the whole damn month was almost over and I hadn't posted anything since the first week of October.

Also I read a pretty good interview (on Jezebel of all places!) with Moonlight Director Barry Jenkins where he addresses some of the questions about how the film deals with masculinity:

JEZEBEL: A lot of people have called this movie “gay.” Do you think that’s a fair description?

BARRY JENKINS: Yeah, for sure. I think it’s central the identity of the character, so it should be central to the identity of the film.


I ask because I thought there was some ambiguity to Chrion’s specific sexuality, and more and more we see people voicing their unwillingness to identify with labels.

True, but the story rests on Tarell McCraney, who’s openly and outwardly gay. I also think, too, that it’s a period piece and I don’t think Tarell and I identify as millennials. But I see exactly where you’re coming from… but I want to know how you’re framing your question because nobody’s asked me that yet and I’m curious to explore it.


Traditionally, we’ve viewed things in binary form, and for men particularly, it’s been like a one-drop rule applied to sexuality: If he’s had sexual contact at any point with a man, people will inevitably dub him gay. I think as our understanding of sexuality develops as a culture, we realize that’s not necessarily correct.

That’s a good point. It’s never in the script, it’s never said in the film, but I never think of the character Kevin as being gay. I always kind of think of him as being bi. But the idea of the label doesn’t take hold. I just think of these two guys and whatever the hell is their relationship. It’s like an amorphous, not fully formed kind of thing. To circle back to your question, maybe it’s not a gay film. But I also think that, again, it’s so central to Tarell’s identity, and it’s central to whatever Chiron thinks he needs to repress in his own personality and identity. In that way, maybe you could work your way around understanding why people frame the film as a gay film. For me, it’s just about this character, and about this place. The last [interviewer] asked, “Why don’t they consummate their relationship at the end of the film?” It’s like, that’s not the journey for the character. I also think that would have been too conventional a resolution for that character, who I think has a long way to go, even after the film ends, before he resolves a lot of his shyt.


Chiron is searching for something a little bit more fundamental than sex. Even as someone who is often frustrated by the lack of sex in queer media, because sometimes it seems like it’s avoided to appease those who are squeamish about depictions of gay sex, that’s not what I got from this movie. It’s hard for queer issues not to drown things out, but this movie deftly balances several elements to explore what it means to be a “man” and how experiences as well as societal imperatives influence and convolute that.

And how societal imperatives dictate the kind of man you feel like you are and the kind of man you feel like you need to be to survive or to withstand or swim with the current. That was always my way in to the world.

Because you’re straight.


Because I’m straight and yet I’m handling this material that’s rooted in Tarell’s experience. I wanted to preserve his voice but I also wanted to take ownership of it. For me, the idea of masculinity and the world that Tarell and I grew up in, I try to make it as specific as possible and as small as possible, how that world can tell you, “This is what a man is. This is how he walks. This is how he dresses. This is how he treats women. This is how he treats other men. This is how he wants other men to view him.” I think if you get enough of that, by which I mean too much of that, you can sort of lose track of who you are and how you want to look at other men and how you want to dress and how you want to speak to women.

When [McCraney’s play] came to me, the guy who sent it to me said, “This isn’t about you… but it’s about you.” I couldn’t immediately get to what that was about, but I sort of took a step back and figured out where my experience and Tarell’s experience aligned. It wasn’t in this very sort of elevated, poetic way. It was very concretely: “Oh shyt, that’s right—I remember what it was like to be in this neighborhood and see the other dudes behaving certain ways and being like, ‘Oh shyt, if they see me behaving this way, I’m fukked up.’” And then you start to extract: What does it feel like at 10, what does it feel like at 16, what does it look like if it’s not checked at 25? And what would it have been like for Tarell to have not checked it and allowed himself to become his own person? And then from there, it was like, “OK, I’ve got it.” The biggest thing was having these conversations with Tarrell and showing him the piece once I had done my translation of it and getting his sign-off. It wasn’t a sign-off like, “Hey, Tarell, you’re gay, and you’re a playwright—can you make sure I’m doing this right?” It was like, “Have I treated your characters fairly? Have I taken what you’ve put into the world and accurately translated it to the screen?” And so far, it seems like we did a good job.


You mentioned specificity, but the burden of a movie that shows underrepresented groups, especially a film as intersectional as this, is that it will be seen as bigger beyond its characters’ narratives. And an unavoidable fact is that we don’t have a lot of depictions of black men who have sex with men on screen. I wonder how much of that responsibility you accepted or cared about or thought about.

I didn’t think about it, but I definitely accepted it, because there are other elements in the film too. The idea of a drug dealer actually taking the time to explain to a kid what a fakkit is. Or to see a black man cradle a black boy in the ocean, teaching him how to swim. Or, the biggest one for me, is when André Holland cooks for Trevante [Rhodes, who plays the final iteration of Chiron]. I’ve never seen a black man cook for another man in a film. It’s like, “Why the fukk haven’t I seen that?” It felt like we had to get all of those things right because if we got them wrong, I felt like I would be doing a disservice to Tarell’s piece and to the characters and to the community—the neighborhood Tarell and I grew up in. But intellectually, I just try as a filmmaker, as an artist to not think about those things. It’s about, “Is this the right kind of kitchen?” “Is he wearing the right things?” “Is he saying the right thing?” and just trying to be authentic. The conversation we’re having now happened way at the earliest stage, before I flew down to Miami to ask for Tarell’s hand in creative marriage. Once that was done and he said that he trusted me, it was about, “Let’s just do it right.” “Let’s find actors that have chemistry.” “Let’s make sure we’re capturing the tension that’s in the air when two kids sit on the beach and have their first sexual experience.”

 

[MartyMcFly]

I feel you; I had all these plans to do Halloween specific reviews and other shyt on my blog but work and life just got in the way and next thing I knew the whole damn month was almost over and I hadn't posted anything since the first week of October.

Word. We've been talking horror on the podcast tho. It follows, the babadook, curse of chucky tomorrow and the witch to end the month

 

[Dr. Narcisse]

Breh who saw it on another forum said at least 5 actors in this movie could legit get a Best Supp. Actor nom. They were that good.

Not going to happen, but still.

 

[Piffery]

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/10/20/moonlight-mahershala-ali-awards-season
The bigots here are way too angry/simple minded, especially about the masculinity part.
Hope I'm able to see this.

 

[Starman]

you know that agenda breh


I mean it's cool to say it's great movie, but talking about it being the best portrait of black masculinity?

South Central

But the agenda is too real.

 

[Milk N Cookies]

I'll see this before I see the Eddie Murphy movie. Looks like the black man's response to Boys Don't Cry or a more detailed story of Kaldrick on LA Complex.

 

[AnonymityX1000]

I went to see another movie this weekend at the multiplex and the line for this movie was real long. This brought out the Black gay male set heavy, they were deep out there. lol

 

[chosenaledge13]

It looks like an amazing film to be honest. Even though I consider myself not homophobic at all, it still makes me feel a little

That's a personal thing, so I don't understand the outward vitriol and anger towards this. It tells the story of what a lot of young black men go through, and to want to shut it up is an even bigger problem. Gay nikkas ain't going nowhere brehs, but I think the point of this film is to respect someone's humanity first.

I'll see it in due time because it looks like an amazing story and well made black film. From those that I know whom have seen it agree, regardless of their sexual orientation.

 

[NobodyReally]

I really want to see this but they don't play movies like this around my area Guess I'll have to wait to Netflix it. I do think it's funny how there are dudes in this thread talking about a gay agenda and virtually vomiting over a black gay male being the subject of a film and then turn around complain about the black community being stereotyped as homophobic. The fukking irony is astounding.

 

[Joe Sixpack]

Great another film that emasculates and feminizes the black man